About meta-architecture, instrument design, and the about, about the spaces within and without.

Saturday, February 18, 2017

Quantus Barney: Secluded Residence @ Radio Shack, Parts III and IV

"Bing Zi eats noodles most loudly, but he does it away
from the main table, sitting hunched like he's pooping. It seems he
thinks the sound of eating is vulgar and he is embarrassed by it as if
it farts. The elves and Cold Lake and the other traditional musicians,
however, had much merriment at the great table that Quantus Barney
provisioned with his simple monk's meal. That is how we supped in
anticipation for the great day of symbolic music ahead of us."

Monkletto
That
night, Monkletto brought casks of wine and had arranged a delivery of
feminine zithers, arched and clothed in silk. The monk wishes his city
friendwould not visit him here, at the secluded
transmitter, but he tolerated Monkletto's patronage and had the wine
placed in the basement by the dog, and he put the kotos up in a rack
above the transmitter.

As he was leaving, Monkletto
prepared a black hole mouth and white noise eyes. He showed this to Bing
Zi and the elves, who were tending the
ceremonial fire in the courtyard. The white noise eyes meant that Monkletto was to upset the Confucian orderliness of the ensemble with his
debased and confused city ways; the black hole mouth meant they should wait for the right
moment to wild out but until then, play lute and flute.

The
pines grow well here because of the sand in the soil and the windy
location. The pines thrive on wind but my microphones do not; this is a
thought in the monk's head. Fortunately in the morning, it was bright
out and quite still, and little birds chirped the
air. A perfect day for lutes, chimes and winds. The visiting
musicians played from dawn to dusk, with a break in between to get ice
cream, kimchi, a hard premade bun, and chips whose bags have many
morals.

The musicians made perfect music, in that
mistakes were accommodated by improvised harmonization. They were
transmitted well by the 800 watt antenna that day, and I received it in my kitchen, cooking and sitting with my son.

That
night, Monkletto arrived again as headlights approaching from far away
in the fields. When he crunched up the gravel driveway, Bing Zi and the elves were known to jump up.
Monkletto had brought women to play the kotos and the cask of wine was
broken open. Laughing in the firelight of the lodge, the women with
jagged teeth first allowed the men to stroke their straight zithers,
then commenced to play chirps and squeaks and also deeper bendy moans on
their kotos. Bing Zi and the elves were blowing lackadaisically on
panpipes when some of the "lesser" women approached them and as was
prescribed by Monkletto, these women were seduced.

In the next installment of "Quantus Barney: Secluded Residence,"What
is the aftermath of Monkletto's debasing incision, especially in the
receptive sensorium of the dog? A note on the video practices of the
overarching institution of the Temple.

Bing Zi and the elves were blowing lackadaisically on panpipes when some
of the "lesser" women approached them and as was prescribed by
Monkletto, these women were seduced. While they were out in the courtyard bonking, Quantus Barney was playing
"At The Watertower" on his zither. The song's simple hot urban rhythm
and funky harmonic effects wafted the courtyard the music of
patchouli and other sonic desert scents.

His dog
remembered a past life as a "desert dog," napping by day in the cool
shade of a cistern, and prowling in the sagebrush at night for lizards,
crickets. At twilight, his master, a leathery human, came out in the
courtyard, and with fallow glistening beady eyes, rubbing his crotch, on
a lady, on a cactus, in a video still...

You see,
Quantus Barney was documenting the whole "scenario" with the video
cameras provided by the Temple that, of course, sponsored his residency
at the transmitter. The documenta was for his secred "monx-filez", a
bunch of tapes labeled in sharpie with various mitigating quotes from
the literature: "Andy Warhol- no touch monk", "Monks exercise every
organ"... He fast forwards the tape to the part where Monkletto is pointing
his tongue to her anus. It flits on the musk and she jumps like
electricity but he pursues her with his triangle tongue.

Sensors and a discussion of microphony in the Pavilion
"The
pavilion has a snake running from it to the radio shack, where various
microphones are mixed into an ensemble for broadcast."

When
the monk plays alone, as often is the case, he puts his zither down on
the resonant pine table inside the radio shack. There he can sit for
hours on a short stool, with a ceramic bowl of bitter tea by his sides.
He is playing alone in this shack because that is the proper way to
play the zither, out here in the pines, where the corn-cob-pipe men grow
corn and listen to his station, which tries to be virtuous, although
all sorts of people do come through, even Monkletto and his women, which
have much to offer the fine airwaves with their multiplicitous plucking
and subtle singing close into the condensers, where farmers can hear
their whistling breath and glottal wordage.

The monk
not only samples his favorite selections from the repertoire, but as
part of his mandate from the temple, he is to discover new pieces and
indeed new configurations of his zither in the secluded residence. His
dog knows that he puts wires inside his zither to pursue the CHAOS arts
along with the speakers in the radio shack. The wires bring out
something unseen from the air, while the zither provides a physical
basis, a body for the monk to work on.

Something is
going on around the wood body, and the dog can only hear the ultrasonic
result of this radio process. It sounds like the bats which are
cultured near the temple, but much louder and much more synthetic in
tenor.

In the next installment of "Quantus Barney: Secluded Residence,"The
dog is gaseous and shaggy. What is the power of the zither, and how to
use it properly? Monkletto scores as electronic music is used for
torture and war.